On September 4, 2024, two Colorado Department of Transportation workers, Trenton Umberger and Nathan “Nate” Jones, were struck and killed while standing outside their parked vehicle on a state highway near Grand Junction. They were doing their jobs. A passing car hit them both. Their names are now on a memorial list that CDOT updates every year.
That list grew significantly in 2024. By November of that year, Colorado had recorded 28 work zone fatalities, a 75% jump from 2023, and more than the two prior years combined. Work zone crashes rose 53%. Speeding was the leading cause of fatal crashes statewide, contributing to 236 deaths over the course of the year, more than impaired driving and more than unbuckled-seatbelt crashes combined.
Colorado had a problem. And a single-point speed camera was not going to solve it.
A different kind of enforcement
The state’s answer is the Automated Vehicle Identification System, or AVIS, a multi-camera setup that doesn’t measure how fast you’re going when you pass a camera. It measures how fast you traveled between two cameras.
The math is simple: distance divided by time. Camera one records your entry. Camera two records your exit. If your average speed across that corridor comes out to 10 mph or more over the posted limit, a $75 civil penalty is mailed to the registered owner of the vehicle, no police stop required, and zero points on your license.
The program launched on Colorado Highway 119, the “Diagonal Highway” between Longmont and Boulder, beginning with a warning period in July 2025 before live enforcement began. The legal foundation had been laid two years earlier, when the Colorado General Assembly passed Senate Bill 24-195, codifying the use of AVIS under Revised Statute 42-4-110.5.
The data that prompted it was hard to look away from. During the CO 119 testing period alone, more than 16% of drivers were traveling 10 mph or more over the work zone speed limit. Over the past decade, Colorado work zones had seen 17,200 crashes and 121 fatalities. The Federal Highway Administration estimates that automated speed enforcement reduces crash-related injuries and deaths by 20 to 37%.
Why Waze can’t help you here
For years, drivers have relied on navigation apps to flag speed cameras. The routine is familiar: the app alerts you, you ease off the gas, you pass the camera at a reasonable speed, and you’re back up to pace within seconds. It works because fixed cameras are fixed points.
AVIS removes that logic entirely. There is no single moment to perform for. The corridor itself is the enforcement zone, and your average speed across it is the only number that matters. Waze can flag that an AVIS zone is active, but it cannot tell you where to slow down, because the answer is the entire stretch of road between the two cameras.
This technology is not new. The UK has used average-speed cameras on motorways for well over a decade. What is new is that it has arrived in the United States in a serious, expanding form. Colorado’s early results are notable. Preliminary CDOT data shows nine work zone fatalities in 2025, down 70% from the 30 recorded in 2024. Work zone injuries also dropped nearly 8%, from 602 to 554.
How the program is built to grow
CDOT has been deliberate about rollout. Every new AVIS corridor comes with at least 30 days of warnings before penalties begin. Signage must be posted at least 300 feet before entering an active zone. A public map on CDOT’s website shows all active enforcement locations. The $75 penalty covers operational costs first, with any surplus directed toward pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure.
Colorado Springs launched its own mobile AVIS units in October 2025. School zones and high-risk corridors beyond active construction sites are already on the expansion roadmap.
There is a broader point worth sitting with: nearly 71% of Colorado drivers have admitted to speeding on highways at least some of the time, according to CDOT’s 2025 Driver Behavior Report. That is not a fringe behavior. It is a majority one. And a AAA Colorado study found that traveling 80 mph instead of 75 mph over a 100-mile stretch saves, on average, about five minutes. The average driver gains roughly 26 seconds per day from speeding.
Trenton Umberger and Nathan Jones were killed at the side of a road they were maintaining. The camera system that Colorado is building is, in part, a response to that. It is difficult to argue with the logic of it, even if the surveillance implications of average-speed enforcement at scale are worth watching closely as the program expands.
For now, the old trick of lifting off near the camera no longer applies on certain Colorado roads. The entire road is watching.
